Ride the River (1983) s-5

by Louis L'Amour

  "No more bears. She either killed 'em all or they just got tired of dodging her and taken off out of the country. Grandma, she was a caution.

  "If you do come to the mountains with me, we'll feed you some bear meat. Good for you. Puts hair on your chest, Regal says."

  He looked shocked. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything about hair on his chest. Young ladies didn't talk that way, I guess. No doubt where he lived young ladies weren't supposed to know that a man grew hair on his chest.

  "I got to go now. I have to meet that young ship's officer. He should have that map for me."

  He stood up, his features stern with disapproval. "I could have gotten a map for you," he protested.

  "Here? On this boat? A chart of the bends and of the places they will stop?"

  Walking forward to the rail which was just above the steps leading down to the cargo deck, I waited, watching the river. Suppose there was no stop? Could we leave the steamboat while it was moving? We would need a boat, of course, or a raft.

  Robinson came along shortly. Hewas good-looking in his uniform coat and cap. He glanced around to see if we were watched, but there was nobody in sight.

  "Here's the Big Sandy, right after we make the bend, after passing the Guyundat. The Indian Guyundat is a creek on the right side." He gave me a sharp look. "What d' you want to know all this for?"

  "Mr. Robinson, you must tell nobody.Nobody , do you understand? I have to leave the boat and I do not want anyone to know.

  "Mrs. Buchanan will certainly be asking. Tell her I've gone forward, tell her anything, but try to make her believe I am still aboard."

  "But, ma'am, there's nothing there at Big Sandy! I mean, there's a landing. We'll nose into the bank there and load some freight, but it won't be more than five minutes."

  "That's all I need. But please! Don't tell anyone! Not even the captain!"

  "Somebody will see you."

  "Maybe, maybe not. I hope not."

  He had drawn a dark line on paper showing the river and where the various creeks came into it. I studied it for a few minutes after he was gone, and then returned to my cabin. Essie Buchanan was not there, so I looked through the carpetbag to make sure everything was all right. I did not know what they intended, but suspected they planned to rob me when I left the boat in Cincinnati.

  Our arrival at Big Sandy would be very late. If I could I would smuggle the carpetbag out of the cabin when Essie had gone to supper, passing it through the outer door to Dorian Chantry.

  What did the arrival of Felix Horst mean? Had he received some knowledge that the others had failed? But how could he know that?

  No, Horst must have some plan of his own. Perhaps he wanted me to be far enough away from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh and in a place where it would take time for word to get back, if it ever did. People were often lost on the river, and the Cave-in-the-Rock had been a hideout for outlaws for years.

  Horst was no fool and he would not want to risk being taken by the law again. He would know how much money I was carrying and he would choose his time very carefully.

  The day passed slowly. Green Bottom Ripple, a dangerous place, was negotiated with care. I watched the creeks to check them off in my mind; then I went back to my cabin and lay down on my berth. I wanted to rest before the coming night.

  Essie Buchanan came in. "What's the matter, dearie? Not feeling well?"

  "I've a headache," I lied, "Just not feeling well, I guess, or maybe it's ague. I've had fever an' chills all the morning. I think I'll just lie here."

  "Want me to bring you something?"

  "No, thanks. I'll just rest."

  At suppertime I went to the main cabin, and as Essie was at another table and could not observe, ate well enough. Dorian Chantry sat across from me.

  There were folks sitting close by, so we could not talk of what we planned, nor about ourselves. There was time to look around and see those who traveled with us. One was an Englishman, interested in western America, who wanted to know everything. He asked a sight of questions and it seemed like he was suspicious of answers. He evidently had a different idea in his mind than what he was discovering to be true, and was uneasy about it.

  He was surprised to find so many people reading Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, and the lot, although I don't know why. A lot of western folks were readers, and books were precious things, hard to come by and much treasured.

  "Miss Sackett? Do you read? I mean for pleasure?"

  "Of course."

  "You have books in your home?"

  "Mighty few. Pa used to lend books, and somehow they never seemed to come back. My Uncle Regal, he took to Scott. When I was no bigger than a button he was always recitingLochinvar or something fromMannion ."

  "From memory?"

  "Of course. We Sacketts all have good memories. Part of it comes natural, part of it is from learning. When folks don't have many books, they have to learn their history by heart. We learned the way ancient people did, like the bards of the Irish or the Welsh.

  "It is a good deal like traveling across country. A body lines up on a peak or a tree or something in the way of a landmark, then as he walks, he checks the backtrail, which always looks different. We learn to pick out a tree here, a rock there, or something of the sort to guide us. Once seen, we don't forget it.

  "Pa, he started teaching us that when we were youngsters, as his pa did before him. It was the same with history or the folks in our family. We learn about the principal Sackett of a time, and all the folks connected to him. You mention any one of the family back three, four hundred years and we can tell you who he or she was married to and what happened to their get. Their children, that is."

  "I never heard of such a thing!"

  "You mention Barnabas, now. He was the first of us in this country, and any Sackett can tell you what ship he crossed on, who his friends were, where he settled, and how."

  "It must have been some such means that was used by the druids."

  My eyes were wide and innocent. "I suspect so." I purposely sounded vague. I had talked as much about that as I was going to.

  Dorian asked me many questions, and I noticed he was listening carefully. From time to time he glanced at me curiously, as if wondering about some of my answers. Ginery Wooster was setting back in his chair, seeming to pay us no mind, but he was listening, too.

  "We all remember that way, after a fashion," I said. "Somebody says 'George Washington,' and right away you think of Mount Vernon, of 1776, of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Valley Forge and all that, and each one of those things tips you off to another set of memories.

  "Well, we just extended that, a-purpose. We didn't just kind of do it by happenstance. We sort of extended it out further and further, and as youngsters we were taught not just to learn something but to learn something else that went with it. Pa, he used to say that no memory is ever alone, it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.

  "There's nothing very remarkable about it, or even unusual except that, like I said, we do it a-purpose."

  "But there must be limits!"

  "Maybe, we just never found one yet."

  Dorian, he pushed back his chair and got up. "Miss Sackett? There are many lights in the sky. Can you come and tell me their names?"

  "Well," I said, "I can start you off right. That big round white one is called the moon. Does that help any?"

  Chapter 14

  Bright was the moon upon the narrow waters, black and silent the shores except for the occasional lights from a settler's cabin, blinking feebly from the trees or some meadowed bluff. There was no sound but for the chugging of the engines, yet we were not alone upon the deck, for others had come from the main cabin to enjoy the night.

  Essie Buchanan was there, accompanied by a heavy-set man with muttonchop whiskers. Was she watching me?

  "I had not realized the Ohio was so large a river," Dorian said aloud, but under his breath he whispered, "I wish they'd
all go to bed!"

  "We must wait them out," I said, not at all unhappy about it. Then I added, "The step to the bow is right behind us."

  "Archie will be down there waiting for us," he said softly. "He has your carpetbag hidden there." After a moment he said, "I still believe we should stay aboard until Cincinnati."

  "They are waiting for us there," I said. "If we move now, there will be fewer of them. We may even get away unseen."

  "If there's trouble," Dorian said, "stay out of it. Leave it to Archie and me."

  "Maybe I could help."

  "You? You're just a girl. What could you do in a fight?"

  "Probably not very much," I agreed meekly, "but I could try."

  "Stay out of it. I do not want you hurt." Then he took the fun out of it by adding, "Uncle Finian would never let me hear the last of it."

  There was a rustle of water about the bow, the low murmur of others' voices.

  "Are you going into law like your Uncle Finian?"

  He shrugged a shoulder. "I haven't decided. I've thought of raising horses. I like the country life."

  "You will see some beautiful country in the next few days. Not the best of Kentucky, but some of it. If you wish to raise horses, there's no better place to go."

  "Maryland," he objected, "Maryland or Virginia. Who would wish to be out in this wilderness?"

  "But it isn't wild anymore. Only in the mountains."

  He turned his back to the rail and rested his elbows on it so he could see what the others were doing. "But some of the people even live in log cabins!" he protested.

  "I live in one. I love it."

  He was astonished. " You? In this day and age?"

  "My grandfather built our cabin. It was the third one built on the spot or close to it. The first two were burned by Indians during the War of the Revolution."

  "A log cabin?In 1840 ?"

  "It is warm and snug and we have a beautiful view of the mountains."

  He glanced at her face in the moonlight and the slight glow from the main cabin windows. Shewas pretty. But living in a log cabin? In these modern times?

  "We have a log barn, too, and we churn our own butter, bake our own bread. Mostly we make do with what the land provides, barrin' a few things from the pack peddler, like needles an' such."

  "But don't you ever want to get away? Don't you think of leaving? Coming to the city?"

  "Oh, yes! I've thought of it, and talked of it, too, with Regal. Only we Sacketts have lived in the mountains for quite a spell.

  "You've got to wake up of a mornin' with the clouds lyin' low in the valleys between the mountains, the tops of the peaks like islands. You've got to see the mountains when the rhododendrons are all abloom, or the azaleas or mountain laurel. We don't have much in worldly goods, but we're rich in what the Lord provides."

  "Have your family always stayed in the mountains?"

  "No, I reckon not. There was Jubal Sackett, a long, long time back. He taken off to the west, crossin' the Mississippi. He returned once, but when he left the second time, it was reckoned he'd never come back. Jubal had the Gift."

  "The 'Gift'?"

  "Second sight. He often knew things before they happened."

  "I don't believe in that."

  "Some don't. I never had the Gift, but it runs in our family."

  "It's superstition."

  "I reckon so, but it has played a big part in our family story." Glancing around, I whispered, "They are going in."

  "But we shall have to wait. From the sketch you showed me, it must be some distance yet."

  "An hour or more, with the current." I hesitated, then added, "When the stage is lowered, we must go ashore at once, before anybody will think to watch."

  "We'd be better off to wait for Cincinnati," he protested. "We will be better off where there are people."

  No use telling him I wasn't used to people caring for me. Where I came from, a body took care of himself and did not look to other folks for protection or even help. If it came, and among mountain folks it often did, then you accepted it and returned the favor when you had the chance, only you did not look for it or expect it.

  Once we got ashore along the Big Sandy, I could make myself mighty hard to find. Out there where the forest brushes the sky, that's my kind of country.

  Something stirred in the shadows and I put my hand on his sleeve. Surprised, he looked down. I was standing very close, and I liked it. "There's somebody there," I whispered, "near the ladder from the Texas deck."

  Maybe we had done all the wrong things, waiting out there until everybody else turned in. Being wishful of standing in the moonlight with him, I'd forgotten they might not wait for Cincinnati or anywhere. We were here, in the night and alone, and they were coming for us.

  "I hope you can fight," I whispered. "We've got it to do."

  They were between us and the main cabin, which would be empty at this hour. We were closer to the steps leading down to the main deck, where cargo was stowed. Minute by minute we were drawing closer to the Big Sandy. There was no way we could get off now without them knowing, but I had an idea they just intended to kill us both and throw us into the river.

  They came out of the shadows, and there were not three of them, but five. They moved toward us, moving in a sort of half circle. None of them looked familiar. Horst must have hired himself some thugs.

  Dorian Chantry spoke, and I must say he was cool enough. "Come, Miss Sackett, we must be going in. I promised the captain I would speak to him before I turned in."

  He took me by the elbow, but I withdrew it from his hand. Not that I did not like it, but I wanted my hands free for what was coming.

  I'll give him this. He did not stand waiting for invitations. Suddenly they rushed, and he stepped to meet them. He struck hard with a left and a right, and the man he hit went down.

  A big sweaty, smelly man grabbed at me. "Now, little lady ...!"

  Two of them were swinging on Dorian and time was a-wasting. As that big man grabbed at me, I slid that pistol from my reticule and eared back the hammer.

  He heard the click and seemed to catch himself in mid-stride. I let the hammer fall, there was an explosion, and that big man taken a quick, staggering step back, then fell against the rail.

  Somebody, somewhere up on the Texas yelled, "What wasthat ?"

  There was a sound of running feet, and almost at once the attack broke off and those men just scattered.

  "Was that a shot?" Dorian grabbed my arm as I slid the pistol back into the reticule. "Are you hurt?"

  "Let's get away from here," I said.

  The steamer was nosing in to the bank and I could hear men down below getting the rigging away to lower the stage. Swiftly we went down the ladder. The man Dorian had hit was struggling to get up; the man I'd shot was just lying there. People were coming from the main cabin as we disappeared down the steps to the bow.

  As the stage lowered into place, we ran ashore. A big deckhand called out, "Hey? You folks! You can't go ashore here!"

  By that time we were in the shadows of a shed, and I heard Dorian's friend Archie whisper, "This way,quick !"

  There was a landing, a shed, and a road leading back into the country. We got into the darkness under some big old trees and stopped there, catching our breath.

  There was confusion on the landing. Cargo had been waiting and there had been some heavy boxes waiting to be off-loaded. I heard somebody call out that a man had been shot.

  "Thug," somebody else said. "What's he doing on this deck? He's no passenger!"

  "I think we had better move," Archie whispered. "The further we get, the better."

  Glancing back, I could see, in the light from the stage, a tall man wearing a planter's hat. He was looking off our way, although I knew he could not see us. It was Horst. There was a cluster of houses and barns, then a land that led away along the Big Sandy. As we moved away, the sounds from the Ohio receded. We stopped a couple of times to look and listen. Had we gotten away
? I was not at all sure. Felix Horst was no fool, and he wanted the money I had.

  Nobody had much to say, walking that muddy road up the Big Sandy, climbing a mite, passing a farm here or there. Dogs barked at us but nobody came to the doors, and it was graying sky before we fetched to a halt under a big old sycamore. One limb of it, big as the trunk itself, ran parallel to the ground and we sat on it, resting our feet.

  "Maybe we could get horses," Dorian suggested.

  "A canoe," I commented, "then we could take off up toward the forks of the creek."

  "That man back yonder?" Archie wondered. "Who could have shot him? One of his own crowd, maybe?"

  "He didn't seem to be dead," Dorian commented. "I saw him trying to roll over when we went down the ladder."

  Me, I hadn't any comment to make. My only worry was getting loaded again, and I was hopeful of recharging my pistol alone, where they could not see. No use them getting ideas, but it was my shot that broke the attack, coming unexpected like that, and alarming folks in the cabins.

  "There's a farmhouse," Dorian suggested, "smoke coming from the chimney. We might buy some breakfast."

  "I'm for that," Archie agreed.

  "All right," I said, "but we'd best not linger over coffee. We will have followers comin' up the trail after us, and they won't be bare-handed. They'll come to fetch trouble this time."

  We walked down to the lane and spoke to the shepherd dog who came charging at us. I put a hand out to him and after a moment he sniffed it, then seemed to accept us, although he barked again from time to time as we come nigh the door.

  That door opened and there was a man standing there who had to put his head outside to stand up, he was that tall. He had thin reddish hair and a large Adam's apple.

  "We're travelin' folks," I said to him, "headin' back for my own mountains, and these gentlemen are keepin' the bears off my back whilst we walk. Right now we're shy of breakfast."

  "Come in an' set. Ma's puttin' on some sidemeat an' corn fritters. Coffee's a-bilin'. This here is fresh ground from our own parch. Never did take to lettin' anybody else parch m' coffee."

  He glanced at Archie, who had seated himself on the steps where he could watch the road. "He belong to you?"